


Of Matchmaking and Concerts

by nverenders



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, this is mostly just frank/gerard with ryan/gabe on the side and like the tiniest bit of pete/mikey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 04:49:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7830937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nverenders/pseuds/nverenders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard really didn’t know how he and Gabe became best friends, it just sort of happened. The same way moving in together ‘just sort of happened’. They’ve met I middle school, sat together in a couple of classes and Gerard guessed it just went on from there. He didn’t mind, he loved Gabe, despite his wild nature that differed greatly from Gerard’s quiet one. They worked out. Gerard didn’t mind Gabe’s loudness or waking up to find some stranger in his kitchen making coffee, and Gabe liked the way Gerard calmed him down and understood him. Really, Gerard was glad they ended up being best friends and roommates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Matchmaking and Concerts

**Author's Note:**

> The short, kind of generic product of procrastinating heaps of Latin homework and book report. The idea was "What if Gabe and Gerard were best friends/roommates?" and I also wanted to write gabe/ryan since it's one of my unpopular, guilty pleasure ships. Unfortunately, there ended up not being very much of that, frerard kind of took over. Maybe one day I'll come around to writing a gabe/ryan fic of its own.

Gerard was pretty used to Gabe barging in his room from time to time, rushing around and digging through his closet. He didn’t really mind, it was Gabe after all, he was used to his weird quirks and habits.

“The black button up’s in the wash,” Gerard said absently, not tearing his gaze away from the pen and paper.

“Really? Fuck, that sucks,” Gabe muttered and the turned to Gerard. “What are you still doing in your pajamas? Come on, hurry up, get dressed! We’re leaving soon! We don’t wanna be _too_ late.”

“Gabe,” Gerard sighed. Every once in a while, Gabe tried to make Gerard come to one of the parties, one of the clubs and Gerard did tried, a few times, but it was too loud and too bright and the music wasn’t even good. He just really didn’t dig it at all.

“I know what you’re gonna say, Gee,” Gabe stopped him, holding his hand out, “but it’ll be fun. Come on, just this once.”

“I don’t know,” Gerard bit his lip. “You know I don’t like those things.”

“Yeah, but this is different,” Gabe pressed on. “It’s less of a party and more of a concert.”

“Whose concert is it?” Gerard asked.

“Some band Pete brought over from Vegas,” Gabe waved it off. “They’re alright, their guitarist’s cute.”

Gerard raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Oh, is that why we’re going?”

“We’ll see, it’s too early to say yet. I need you to be my wingman,” Gabe waggled his eyebrows. “Seriously, man, it’ll be fun. It’s a concert in a bar, no one even knows this band yet so the crowd’s gonna be familiar and good. You can bring Mikey if you want.”

Gerard let out a fake tortured sigh, although he already caved in. He just needed to be dramatic for a bit.

“Fine,” he said. “Can’t Pete be your wingman?”

“Not if you bring Mikey,” Gabe smirked, making Gerard scrunch up his face.

***

Gabe was right, it really was a bar. There were familiar people mingling, some of them already sipping beer or smoking.

Gabe had gone off to say hi to some friends, leaving Gerard and Mikey alone. Gerard really didn’t know how he and Gabe became best friends, it just sort of happened. The same way moving in together ‘just sort of happened’. They’ve met I middle school, sat together in a couple of classes and Gerard guessed it just went on from there. He didn’t mind, he loved Gabe, despite his wild nature that differed greatly from Gerard’s quiet one. They worked out. Gerard didn’t mind Gabe’s loudness or waking up to find some stranger in his kitchen making coffee, and Gabe liked the way Gerard calmed him down and understood him. Really, Gerard was glad they ended up being best friends and roommates.

“Ohh, I see Gabe managed to drag you out of the apartment for once,” Pete’s amused voice reached Gerard’s ears. He walked over to them, smiling from ear to ear. “It’s good to see you, man.” He then noticed Mikey standing next to them and turned around to greet him too. His voice got a barely noticeable, but still very much there, flirtatious note. “Hi, Mikeyway,” he said. “It’s good to see you too. It’s been a while.”

Soon, he started shamelessly flirting with him, as he always did, and Gerard got out of there as quickly as possible. He didn’t mind Pete, on the contrary, he thought he was a great guy, but he didn’t really want to hear him trying to chat his brother up and talk him into sleeping with him, thank you very much.

He went around to try and find Gabe and, because he was looking up hoping to see his head and that ridiculous bright hat, he wasn’t really looking where he was going, so he suddenly crashed into something pretty warm and reasonably soft.

“Hey, watch where you’re going,” said an angry voice.

“Oh, sorry,” Gerard apologized. “I was trying to find my friend.”

He looked around more and, when he didn’t spot him, he lowered his gaze down to the guy he almost knocked down.

It was just Gerard’s luck, of course, that he managed to crash into the hottest guy in this entire fucking bar. _Of course._ It makes sense; he was bound to meet the most attractive guy there and manage to piss him off before he even introduced himself.

He was short and looked sort of like he just escaped from a cartoon in which he’s the cool punk guy who goes around breaking windows and flipping off old ladies. The shirt he wore was just a tad too tight and he had tattoos going all the way up from his hands to under the shirt. Even his neck was tattooed, he was wearing earrings, a nose ring and a lip ring. Gerard almost couldn’t breathe. To top it off, the guy had a Mohawk. _A Mohawk._ Black hair on top falling on his pretty, squareish face and greenish-brownish eyes, with shaved, bleached sides. You could already see the dark roots, which made the whole thing look even better, if Gerard was being honest.

The guy seemed to soften under Gerard’s gaze and offered his hand.

“I’m Frank,” he said.

“Gerard,” Gerard replied and shook the offered hand, finding himself at a bit of a loss of words.

“So who’s your friend? Maybe I can help you find him,” Frank offered.

“Uh, yeah, that’d be pretty cool,” he managed to force himself to say. “Maybe you know him, Gabe Saporta? Tall guy, has curly, short, dark hair? Really bright clothes, he’s wearing a purple snapback? He may have tried to hit on you and spoke in Spanish while he was at it.”

“I know Gabe, he’s pretty hard to miss,” said Frank and laughed. “C’mon, I think I’ve seen him somewhere near the stage.”

Frank grabbed Gerard’s wrist and pulled him through the crowd until they were at the side of the stage, looking around.

“I don’t think he’s here,” Gerard concluded, frowning. “I can’t believe him, he drags me down here ‘cause he likes this stupid guitarist and wants me to be his wingman or whatever and then he just disappears off to god knows where and-“

“Calm down, man,” Frank laughed next to him. “Don’t get so worked up. He’s probably fine; I wouldn’t be surprised if he was backstage making out with the guy already.”

Gerard reckoned that was true. On second thought, he didn’t really get why Gabe even told him he wanted him to be is wingman, it’s not like he _needed_ one. Gabe could be his own wingman, pilot, flight attendant and mechanic all at the same time.

Unless. Gerard’s stomach dropped at the thought. Unless Gabe just needed an excuse to drag him here to set him up with someone. He turned suspiciously to Frank.

“Did Gabe invite you to this?” he asked him.

“What? No, I don’t really know him that well,” he shrugged.

“Trust me, he invites all sorts of people he doesn’t know that well to all sorts of places,” Gerard grumbled and Frank gave him a funny look.

“You know him well?” he asked.

“We live together,” Gerard cleared up and unexplainably, Frank’s face fell a little.

“Oh. Right,” he said and Gerard realized what he meant.

“Oh, no, not like that! Gabe’s not really the relationship type. Not that we’re sleeping together either,” he rushed, panicked. “He’s my best friend. We’re- it’s purely platonic.”

Frank was laughing. Gerard wasn’t sure if it was just wishful thinking, but he looked a bit relieved as well.

They were interrupted by a large guy leaning on the stage next to the door Gerard guessed lead backstage.

“Sorry, I overheard your conversation, you guys looking for Gabe?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Gerard replied, not at all surprised this strange man knew Gabe.

“He just got backstage five minutes ago,” the guy motioned to the door. “I’m Zack, by the way.”

They introduced themselves as well and after Gerard said Gabe was his best friend, Zack opened the door and let them go backstage.

“Should you be allowed to do that?” Gerard wondered anxiously.

Zack rolled his eyes. “It’s not like they’re rich and famous, no one even knows who they are.”

With that, they went through the door and after a short, narrow hallway, they found themselves in a small room with a big couch, a hanger, some pictures on the wall and an impressive amount of clothes lying around everywhere. Besides the clothes and the furniture, the room also held six people, not counting Gerard and Frank. Gerard recognized two of them: Pete and Gabe. The other four seemed younger, clean shaven and small, nervously smiling and sitting on the couch. Pete was talking to one of them who appeared to have some sort of a bowl cut and was practically buzzing with excitement, nodding enthusiastically. The other three seemed calmer; the one with a resting bitchface was listening to whatever Pete and the other guy were talking about, one of them was fiddling with his hands and staring at his – was he wearing flip flops? – and the last one was talking to Gabe, seeming kind of amused. _The cute guitarist,_ Gerard thought immediately. It had to be him. He was Gabe’s type, all cute and innocent looking; he liked those kinds of boys best.

“Gerard, hey,” Pete said when he spotted them, averting everyone’s attention to them.

“Hey, Pete, I thought you were chatting my brother up somewhere,” Gerard greeted.

“I was,” Pete said smugly, “but I had to go check how my boys were doing.”

“Oh, I see you’ve already met Frank,” Gabe remarked, looking at Frank, with a grin that only meant he _was_ actually behind it.

Frank looked confused. Whether it was because he was surprised Gabe knew who he was or he was starting to realize he was getting set up too, Gerard didn’t know.

“Yeah, I bumped into him looking for you,” Gerard explained.

“Oh, I went backstage with Pete; I wanted to meet the guys. They call themselves ‘Panic! at the Disco’,” said Gabe.

“With an exclamation mark,” Gabe’s cute guitarist added.

“That’s a pretty cool name,” Frank said, speaking for the first time since they got there.

“Thanks,” said Flip Flops.

“Anyway, guys,” Gabe spoke to the band, “this is my favorite guy Gerard and his short, tattooed friend Frank.”

The band said hi, Bowl Cut raising his hand in a wave even though they weren’t further than two meters apart. Then Gabe introduced the band, pointing his finger at them as he did. Flip Flops was Jon, Bitchface was Spencer, Excited Bowl Cut’s name was Brendon and the cute guitarist was Ryan.

Having been officially introduced, Frank and Gerard stayed and talked to the guys for a bit, mostly about music. It turned out they all had pretty diverse, interesting taste, but Gerard was most interested in what Frank had to say on the matter. He wasn’t disappointed which, of course, was expected because as ridiculous as it sounded, Frank looked like his music taste.

The guys were really nice. Everyone seemed mildly uncomfortable by Gabe’s very obvious flirting to which Ryan played along to. It seemed to have send Gabe over the moon and from hearing Ryan talk about music, books, and movies, he sounded like a really smart, tasteful guy so Gerard was kind of hoping Gabe didn’t want to just drag him to bed and never call again. It would be nice to have Ryan stick around.

After a while, a girl who introduced herself as Audrey, Brendon’s girlfriend, came in and started doing their makeup. Well, Ryan did his own makeup, painting long, elegant lines from the corner of his eye down to his cheek. It looked kind of ridiculous but it wasn’t _bad,_ and Gerard was pretty impressed. When he snuck a glance at Gabe, he found him staring at Ryan as well, looking even more impressed than Gerard, with a soft smile on his lips. Gerard hoped that was an indicator that Ryan would stick around. Then, the band changed into their equally ridiculous stage clothes. By the time they were done and ready to go on stage, they looked like they belonged in an old circus from the 1920’s. Gerard thought it was pretty awesome.

When they went on, Gerard followed Frank from backstage to where the crowd was. On stage, Ryan looked scared shitless, gripping his guitar like a lifeline. Spencer was behind on the drums and if he was feeling anxious, it was either pretty well hidden or just too far away to see. Jon seemed relaxed on his bass, but then again Gerard was pretty sure he was high. He didn’t wanna seem rude and ask, they’d only just met and it would be pretty awkward if it turned out it was just his personality. Brendon, as the frontman, came on stage practically jumping up and down and if he seemed excited while they were sitting backstage, it was amplified around ten gazillion times now. He was pretty chatty, talking to a polite crowd who had no idea who the fuck they were, and even managing to psych them up. They kicked into the first song and it was good, Gerard really liked the lyrics and thought the music was good too. Frank said he thought it was okay but wasn’t really up his alley so they went back to the bar and Frank bought a beer for himself. He agreed, however, the lyrics were very, very good. The two of them enjoyed the show from the back of the room, where it wasn’t as loud and they could talk without yelling in each other’s ears.

When the show finished, they didn’t go back backstage. Gerard and Frank slipped out of the bar together to get some fresh air and ended up walking around the town. Gerard texted Gabe so he wouldn’t worry. He didn’t know when he’d get back home; he was having such a great time laughing and hanging out with Frank, not doing anything special. It was strange, how they bumped into each other and remained close together the entire night.

Finally, they settled on a sidewalk somewhere, laughing and leaning into each other. Frank took out a pack of cigarettes and offered Gerard one, so they smoked in silence for a while.

“Was Gabe trying to set us up?” Frank asked, all of a sudden.

Gerard was quiet for a bit, trying his best to think through what he was going to say because in situations like these (especially if there was someone as attractive as Frank involved) he tended to get very nervous and say stupid, thoughtless shit.

“I think so,” he ended up saying slowly.

Frank smiled. Gerard didn’t know what it meant. It was dark and Gerard couldn’t really get a good look of Frank’s face so it was even harder to read him. The silence ate Gerard’s nerves.

“I think he’s a pretty good matchmaker,” Frank spoke again after a while and Gerard’s heart leapt. He turned to Gerard and raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

Gerard didn’t know how to speak anymore. He stared at Frank, trying to remind himself how to open his god damn mouth and use his stupid voice.

“I think he’s pretty good too,” he managed to blurt out with great difficulty.

It seemed to be the right thing to say because Frank smiled at him and leaned in. Gerard mimicked him and his eyes fluttered closed and before he knew it their lips brushed against each other. Suddenly, he felt like he was back I middle school, having his first shy kiss on a swing set in a dark park. He felt as giddy as he did back then. Frank pulled back but not for long, tilting his head a bit and pressing his lips against Gerard’s a bit harder this time. Their lips moved together for some time before they parted their mouths slightly and started using their tongues too. Frank put slid his hands up through Gerard’s hair and kept them there so Gerard cupped the side of his face and put his other hand on his waist. It felt so good and so surreal to be doing this and all he wanted was to forget everything and stay on this sidewalk forever, kissing Frank.

Gerard didn’t know how much time had passed since they left the bar, so he was surprised when his phone started ringing, interrupting them.

“Hello?” Gerard picked up.

“Hey man, where are you?” Gabe slurred slightly on the other line. “Ry and I are going to his hotel room so you can like, come home if you wanna. Bring Frank there too, if you guys are getting it on already.”

“I- um. Have fun,” Gerard said, not finding a discreet way to describe the Frank situation. He could probably hear everything Gabe said anyway, since he was sitting right next to him.

“Oh, I will,” Gabe said smugly. “I hope you do too. There’s a pack of condoms in the top drawer in my room, if you kids need them. Lube’s there too, but it might be under the socks, you’ll have to dig around. Alright, I’m gonna go now – I’m coming, Ry, just a sec!” he laughed. “Anyway, yeah. See you tomorrow.”

The line went dead and Gerard felt really uncomfortable, ‘because he was pretty sure Frank heard every word, even if he was trying not to listen.

“I, uhm,” Frank began, “I’m not really looking for a one night stand.”

Oh, god. Yes he has. “Me neither,” Gerard said quickly. “That’s just… Gabe. He’s kind of drunk too, I wouldn’t worry. But if you… don’t live nearby you can sleep over. Like, actually sleep and all that. If you want to,” he tried to suggest awkwardly.

“I live two blocks away, actually, so it’s fine. But thank you. If I lived further away, I would have,” he said and Gerard was kind of startled he was just as awkward as he was. “But… I’d like to see you again. And see where that takes us. I had a really great time tonight,” he smiled.

“Yeah, me too,” Gerard smiled back. “Do you want to, um, exchange numbers?”

“Oh, yeah, that’d be great.”

They wrote each other’s numbers in their phones and pressed their lips together as goodbye. Gerard felt light as a feather walking back home and he wasn’t even scared someone was gonna jump out of somewhere and stab him. Jersey was pretty eerie at night, but Gerard was in such a good mood he barely noticed it.

It hasn’t been fifteen minutes before Gerard’s phone rang again, and this time it was Frank.

“Gerard?” he chucked uncertainly.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he asked. “Got lost on the way home?”

“Well, not exactly…,” Frank trailed off. “But I did sort of forget the keys to my apartment and my roommate’s out of town for the weekend. Does the offer to sleep over still stand?” he asked.

Gerard smiled. “Sure. Meet me at the sidewalk?”

“I’m on my way,” Frank said, and Gerard could hear him smile. “Thank you.”

“It’s really no problem,” Gerard returned. It really, _really_ wasn’t.

***

At 11:30, Gerard finally stirred awake. He yawned and stretched before he stumbled out of bed and made his way towards the kitchen.

He was surprised to find Gabe and Frank sipping coffee and talking quietly about something, laughing. Gerard hoped Gabe wasn’t talking about his embarrassing middle school haircuts or phases; Frank really didn’t need to hear about that.

“Oh, the sleeping beauty finally awakes,” Gabe commented when he saw him. “Something tire you out yesterday, huh princess?”

Gerard blushed. He didn’t mean to, but he wasn’t very good at controlling it. “No, we- Frank slept on the couch.”

Gabe looked the tiniest bit disappointed, but Gerard thought he was actually glad he got on with Frank and that his matchmaking skills weren’t as rusty as everyone thought they were when he tried to set up Patrick Stump with Bob Bryar. “But they’re both drummers!” was Gabe’s excuse. Patrick was mad at him for exactly two weeks and Gerard was pretty sure Bob was still confused over what happened.

“So how did last night go?” Gerard asked, fixing himself some coffee as well.

Gabe grinned. “Fantastic,” he said. Judging by the bags under his eyes and the subtle glow, it really was that good. “They’re staying in town for a while; Pete wants them to go to a studio and record a debut, so they’re not leaving anytime soon. Ry’s kind of nervous about it. He doesn’t think they’re good enough.”

Frank frowned. “What? I mean, it’s not really right up my alley but it’s good music. Really.”

Gabe nodded hard in agreement. “I know, but he just won’t listen. Anyway, we’re going out again on Wednesday so I’m gonna talk to him about it some more,” he said.

“So he’s gonna stick around?” Gerard asked before he could stop himself. Gabe just smiled in return.

“We’ll see, Gee, I kinda hope so,” he said.


End file.
